The Effect of H1N1 (Swine Flu) Media Coverage on Agricultural Commodity Markets

The authors estimate the market impact of media coverage related to the name "swine flu" relabeled subsequently as "2009 H1N1 flu," on the future prices of lean hogs, live cattle, corn, and soybeans. They then quantified the revenue loss, employing the subset vector autoregressiv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inApplied economic perspectives and policy Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 241 - 259
Main Authors Attavanich, Witsanu, McCarl, Bruce A., Bessler, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford University Press 01.06.2011
Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
SeriesApplied Economic Perspectives and Policy
Subjects
2009 H1N1 flu
agricultural commodity markets
Agricultural economics
Food safety
futures markets
H1N1 subtype influenza A virus
Hogs
Journalism
Market prices
Meats
media coverage
Pork
price analysis
Revenue
risk communication
Soybeans
Submitted Articles
subset vector autoregression
swine flu
Q13
C32
futures markets
price analysis
2009 H1N1 flu
swine flu
risk communication
media coverage
G13
agricultural commodity markets
subset vector autoregression
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Summary:The authors estimate the market impact of media coverage related to the name "swine flu" relabeled subsequently as "2009 H1N1 flu," on the future prices of lean hogs, live cattle, corn, and soybeans. They then quantified the revenue loss, employing the subset vector autoregressive model. The results indicate that the media coverage was associated with a significant and temporary negative impact on the futures prices of lean hogs, but with little impact on the other futures prices. The impact persisted for about four months, yielding an April-December 2009 market revenue loss of about $200 million (about 2.51 percent).
ISSN:2040-5790
2040-5804
DOI:10.1093/aepp/ppr008